The Brimeyer Group, Inc.

A Futuristic Outlook

The following thought-provoking forecasts were published in The Futurist Magazine, November-December 2006 issue

Business and Economics

• An estimated 3.3 million high-tech service jobs will move out of the United States over the next 10-15 years. This trend reflects the pervasive spread of the Internet, digitization and the availability of white-collar skills abroad.

• Pharmaceutical manufacturing will migrate to the developing world. By 2040, the pharmaceutical industry will move to developing countries with skilled scientific labor pools.

Demography

• Generation Y will migrate heavily oversees. The population segment born between 1978 and 1995 may be the first U.S. generation to have many members taking advantage of oversees opportunities.

• Companies will see the age of their workers span four generations. Workers over the age of 55 are expected to grow. In less than five years, 77 million baby boomers in the U.S. will begin reaching the age of 65, changing the idea of retirement significantly.

Habitats

• More Americans will move to rural areas than are moving out. The highest percentage of growth will be people over 65. Particularly popular places will be the mountainous west and the areas of the south.

• The Internet will drastically change living patterns and urban populations. More people will use the Internet to work remotely from scenic locations. In contrast, more corporations will move their headquarters back to major metro areas to allow management heads to network with global peers in banking and the media, while nonessential duties are performed elsewhere.

Health and Medicine

• Embryonic stem cells will be used in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers believe that new techniques for growing brain tissue from stem cells will help doctors build replacement neural or brain matter.

• By 2030, we will see drugs individualized according to a patient’s gnome.

• The use of nanotechnology in medicine will increase. Smart drug-delivery systems will release medicines into the body at precise location.

Environment

• The costs of global warming-related disasters will reach $150 billion per year. The world’s total economic loss from weather-related catastrophes has risen 25% in the last decade.

Information Society

• Text will be instantly translated into multi-media presentations. Rapid language processing will create multimedia animations of your favorite book or text – such as directions to a museum in a foreign country.

• Education will be portable and learning will be on-demand. Educators will increasingly upload lectures and educational “playlists” that will be sent to pod casting services, allowing students to access at their convenience.

• Computers will be more that 1,000 times more powerful in a decade, one million times more powerful in 20 years and one billion times more powerful in 30 years.

Resources

• By concentrating more on producing transportation fuels than food, the world’s farmers could strengthen their role in the global economy. Sugarcane or palm oil grown for fuel, for instance, could give producers in tropical countries a vital strategic advantage.

• Skyrocketing oil prices make cheaper energy sources like coal look more attractive. Use of coal worldwide is expected to grow by 1.5% a year.

Work

• Super longevity will have a growing influence on career choices. Realizing that careers might extend for 50 years or more, younger careerists will experiment with unique career patters. More young people will opt to pursue postgraduate education and may remain in school well into their 20s or early 30s in order to train for the complex jobs required.

• New job titles for potential future occupations could include: Experience Designer, Corporate Historian, Offshore Outsourcing Coordinator, Chief Innovation Officer, Executive Chef (Space Airline, Skycar Mechanic, Transhumanist Designer/Technician or Underwater Hotel Manager.

In 1995, Jim Brimeyer chaired a Steering Committee for a community visioning process for the City of St. Louis Park. The resulting vision “A Community of Choice for a Lifetime” began a decade-long journey that resulted in a four-block New Urbanism redevelopment project, a new recreational and aquatic facility, an outdoor amphitheatre, expanded parks and trails, new housing opportunities, stronger neighborhoods and a strong movement towards residents determining their city’s destiny. The success of this initiative spurred the city into continuing the journey. In 2006, Jim Brimeyer was again asked to chair a community-wide visioning process utilizing the theme of Discover-Dream-Design. The process involved 1,200 representatives from government, schools, businesses, community organizations, religious institutions and neighborhoods and resulted in the Book of Dreams – 2006. We invite you to read the book at: www.stlouispark.org/about/vision.htm